Today marks 10 years (TEN!) since I defended my PhD dissertation at the University of Toronto.
Part me of want to opine on things I’ve learned.
Part of me laments progress not made.
Part of me cheers what I’ve accomplished.
That was a complicated day. I was happy to defend. I’d spent a long time with my dissertation and was proud of it. It’s not perfect; please don’t read the introduction 😂
I was also generally very over the whole PhD thing. I was mad at my department (not my committee or supervisor).
Afterward, I had some typos to fix, I wrote my acknowledgements, and then I handed in the final version to the graduate school. I think I had a couple weeks to do that.
Then that was it.
My graduation was in June, and I remember opening the envelope holding my diploma once I was back in my seat. I saw my name on that big piece of paper and knew it was all truly over. That was when I truly breathed.
How was your defence (or defense, or viva, or whatever you had, if you had)?